


Fly Away Home

by dearlydraupadi



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson is a Gift
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-07-13 09:06:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearlydraupadi/pseuds/dearlydraupadi
Summary: Sam Wilson is a good man, or at least he tries to be. So when he accidentally finds himself the handler of a recently escaped Winter Soldier, he does what any "good person" would do: let's the guy live in his house, eat his food, and slowly tries to rehabilitate him into society. Things just get a little bit more complicated when Sam meets Steve Rogers, discovers his houseguest's secret identity, and HYDRA comes around to ruin everyone's day.A CATWS rewrite where Bucky gets free, Sam gets to be a big damn hero, and Steve is the bisexual America deserves.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I regret nothing, I own nothing, and this is my mountain of trash, join me in frolicking in it!

Prologue: The Soup

The dumpster is moving. That was Sam’s first thought. His second thought, already attuned to the idea that there must be a person in there, was that whoever was hiding in the dumpster probably wasn’t aware of what sort of building they were hiding outside. If they were, they might have come on indoors. Thursdays were soup night at the VA, and it wasn’t like they were exclusive about checking IDs before serving. 

“Hey,” he said, gently as he could, “you all right in there?”

The pile of trash in the dumpster went completely still and didn’t move again. Sam figured it was hoping that he would walk away and just leave it be. But, well, Sam wasn’t the walk away and leave it be kind of guy. He’d never been that kind of guy, hence why he’d joined up in the first place. His whole career trajectory was a rejection of the idea that leaving it be was an option at all. Sam Wilson didn’t give up. So he tried again.

“You hungry? We got some dinner inside. It’s tortilla soup and cornbread tonight.”

The dumpster continued pretending no one was inside, and if he weren’t so sure of himself Sam might have believed it. But he was sure. There was someone in there, and they probably needed help more than they needed to be left alone, especially on soup night.

“All right then,” he said. “Hope to see you inside.”

Sam wanted nothing more than to jump in that dumpster and start rooting around until he found whoever was in there, but he knew for a fact that would do more harm than good. So instead he did what he knew he could. He walked back indoors, grabbed a tray, and loaded it up with a big bowl of soup and as much cornbread as his conscience would allow. Then he brought it outside and placed it on next to the dumpster.

“Brought you some,” he said to the still unmoving mass inside. “I’ll go back in and leave you alone, but if you ever need some help, come on in. Tell me what you thought of the food.”

And with that, he left.

In another world, the soup went uneaten and four hours later the Winter Soldier was recaptured by HYDRA. Sam Wilson met Steve Rogers while running around the Washington Mall and ended up fighting by his side to end Project Insight. In another world, the man who once was Bucky Barnes tore off Sam’s wings and threw him at the ground before disappearing into the Potomac.

But in this world, the dumpster moved. It ate the soup, and it stayed free.


	2. Not Okay, Dude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's dumpster friend comes in from the cold.

It had been a long day already, and Sam knew trouble when he saw it.

“Hey, man, group is over – but you’re welcome to some of the coffee and donuts.” He gestured behind him and kept stacking chairs. This guy didn’t look like he wanted to talk. Truth be told, he didn’t look like he wanted to even be in the building. But the VA had a way of drawing people in. That was what it was for, after all. This guy screamed vet. He just needed a minute to get his bearings and hopefully not to decide that he was a racist asshole about to make Sam’s life a living hell.

Not that Sam had any experience with racist assholes or anything.

Sam snuck glances at the man out of the corner of his eye while he tidied the room. He was roughly his age, with scraggly brown hair in desperate need of a wash covered by the world’s most pathetic baseball hat. The guy had to be wearing like eight layers, which was a lot for Washington DC, even in the winter. He was clearly cataloguing the exits and checking the windows, signs of PTSD but fairly standard ones as far as everything went. The weirdest thing about him was definitely that he was still wearing gloves indoors, but that wasn’t serial killer weird. Sam relaxed minutely. This was probably fine. His instincts were probably wrong and this guy was probably not a massive threat.

“Samuel Isaiah Wilson, pararescue. Currently a counselor at the Veteran’s Affairs building. Current address 54 Poplar Street. Only surviving parent is father, Franklin Wilson, residing at 90 Livingston Avenue, Apt. 1A, in Harlem, New York. Sister…”

“Man what the hell?”

Sam was never ignoring his instincts again. He whipped around as the man began talking, stunned to hear his life details mechanically and rustily recited as if by rote. The man didn’t make eye contact while he delivered his report, just kept going until Sam, having heard enough, interjected. Then he stopped, without looking up, and went still, as if waiting for orders.

“Not okay, dude. That is what we call an invasion of privacy.”

The man didn’t move. Sam felt himself wanting to reach for a gun that wasn’t there, to draw on the threat that he now felt more clearly than he had before. What the hell? Who the hell was this guy?

“Everything okay in here?” June stuck her head in from the hallway, a look of concern etched on her face.

“It’s fine,” he said, without really working to make his tone match the words. “I’ll be out in a minute to close up.”

She nodded, still slightly suspicious, and went back out. Sam took a calculated risk and stepped closer to the man, noting how his eyes tracked Sam’s feet. 

“Man, you can’t just go looking up people’s families online,” he hissed. “Some people might view that as a threat.”

Nothing.

“Look, if you came here for group, come again next week, and please leave the creepy googling at home.”

Still nothing.

“Did you do this research on anyone else who works here?”

The man was completely still and silent. He decided to try something.

“Soldier.”

The man’s eyes shot up and it was as if with relief he met Sam’s gaze. “Reporting.”

“Where did you get your information, Soldier?”

The man settled into parade rest position and spat out, as if comfortably reporting to a superior officer, “Used advanced information gathering tactics, Sir, as trained. Followed standard procedure for ascertaining loyalties of assigned handler.”

“Handler?”

The man didn’t reply, but continued looking at Sam. Sam was starting to get the feeling that his training, extensive though it had been, wasn’t going to cover this.

“Am I your handler, Soldier?”

“Sir.”

His training definitely didn’t cover this. It covered how to deal with emotional attachments, how to deal with dissociations, how to deal with soldiers who still lived in the emotional reality of their service, but not what to do when a soldier who didn’t seem particularly stable decided you were his handler. That was new.

It also raised an important question. Handlers weren’t a thing in most branches of the military. This guy was obviously a vet, but a handler suggested wetworks. So did the information gathering. Was he – 

“Soldier, what is your name and rank?”

The man looked at him confused.

“Soldier, what is your name and rank?”

The man just continued to stare, unblinking, with his head cocked slightly to the side. It was as if Sam had asked a question that just wasn’t computing.

“What do I call you?”

The man relaxed a fraction. “Asset.”

Well fuck, this was even worse than he thought. He had a mentally damaged, traumatized man here who clearly worked for covert ops and couldn’t even remember his name and rank. Sam was going to have to pull out all the stops on this one. He might even have to bring in external help.

“Okay, Asset, thank you for coming to me. I’m glad we’re going to be able to work together to get you back to fighting shape.” The man nodded, though he didn’t seem particularly happy about this. He didn’t seem particularly anything about it. “But it’s getting late, and I got to get home. You should probably get going too. Why don’t we meet back here tomorrow?”

The man, or Asset, or whatever, cocked his head again and looked at Sam.

“Do you have someplace to sleep?”

Nothing.

Sam was about done. He needed to go home and read about a dozen books on trauma counseling before he felt ready to deal with this in the morning. So he repeated himself and walked to the corner of the room, turning the lights off.

“Come on, Soldier. We’ll come back tomorrow morning. How does 8am work for you?”

When Sam didn’t get a response, he rephrased. “Report back here at 8am, Asset. We’ll start work then.”

He could feel a presence at his back as the man followed him out of the room. He nodded to June as they stepped into the hallway. “All set back there.”

“You have a good night now,” she said, nodding to both of them. Sam smiled back at her and led his shadow out of the building.

It was cold, the winter wind whipping through the trees they’d planted just after he got back stateside. The trees were almost tall enough to provide real shade now, and definitely tall enough for the wind to get at them. The man stepped to Sam’s side, where he could see him.

Sam had a hunch the guy was living rough, but he knew it was a slippery slope. He worked at the VA, and he needed to be able to leave his work behind him. If he opened his home to every hard case that turned up at their doors, he’d been running his very own shelter in a week, and Sam needed a haven too. So he said his goodbyes and turned for his car, taking care not to look behind him to see the man left standing on the steps of the VA in the cold.

It was fine.

It was a lot less fine when he got to his house and the man was already there, standing at his doorstep, looking pleased with himself.

“Dude.”

Sam was tired. He was freaked out. He was this close to calling the cops on a possibly dangerous, probably armed veteran who he should be ready to counsel instead. So he did the last thing he wanted to do. He didn’t enforce his boundaries. He didn’t think about the consequences. He didn’t leave a man to freeze to death on his literal doorstep. Instead, he opened his door and said two words, “Come in.”

And so he saved the life of Bucky Barnes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam has such good intentions of boundaries and is such crap at keeping them - which is actually fairly realistic of most social workers I know, sadly.


	3. People Need Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's decision to take a strange man into his home works out surprisingly well - also, his neighborhood is boring.

Sam was almost shocked by how not hard it was to sleep with a stranger under his roof. He’d expected a night of restless tossing and turning, of waking up every few hours to check the locks, of having paranoid dreams about sand constantly falling away underneath his feet. Hell, he’d half wondered if he was going to wake up with a gun in his face.

But to his great shock, he woke up to the sound his alarm in the morning, having slept soundly through the night. It was as if nothing was wrong. Actually, it was better than that. It was the best night’s sleep he’d had in months.

He staggered through his morning routine – not typically a morning person, but willing to put some effort into it now and again – and walked into the living room to find his houseguest, the Asset or whatever his name really was, standing at parade rest in front of the big bay window that overlooked the street. At the sound of Sam’s footsteps, the man turned and stared over at Sam.

“Hey,” said Sam, pulling orange juice out of the fridge. “Did you sleep okay?”

The night before he had shown the man to his not too shabby guest room, the pinnacle of Sam’s adulting prowess. He was a grown man with a whole extra room just for housing other people who sometimes stayed with him. It was like a giant room-sized fuck you to the boyfriend who’d called him immature for still having a couple Captain America comics tucked away in his closet.

Asset didn’t reply to Sam’s question about his sleep, but he did actually speak, which was an improvement on the night before. “Permission to report, Sir.”

Sam poured himself a glass of juice and then poured another one for his guest. Waffles or pancakes? Oatmeal? What the hell do you feed ex-wetworks amnesiacs anyway? Bacon? “Granted,” he said, before taking a sip. Bacon was probably a good bet.

While Sam pulled out a skillet and put the skills his mama had drilled into him before leaving for Basic to good use, the Asset reported out what he’d seen during the night.

1\. A neighborhood youth arriving home late and sneaking in through her upstairs window.  
2\. A dog let loose from the backyard of one of Sam’s neighbors peeing on every bush in Sam’s yard.  
3\. An elderly neighbor stealing Sam’s newspaper.  
4\. An improperly registered van going twelve miles over the speed limit at three thirty-seven in the morning.  
5\. Other varied suburban moments that Sam dismissed calmly internally, while thanking the Asset for his faithful watch.

When the bacon was cooked and the oatmeal was done, Sam set two places and motioned for the Asset to sit. The Asset, however, did not.

“Man, come on. Food’s getting cold.”

Sam waited and watched the internal war as the Asset struggled between his desire to keep standing and his intense need to do what Sam wanted him to do. He felt like he ought to feel bad for manipulating another man that way, but hey. He was getting the guy to eat.

Eventually, grudgingly, the Asset sat, and picked up a spoon. Sam grinned and toasted him with his orange juice.

They ate in relative silence, the Asset being not particularly prone to using words more than absolutely necessary, and Sam needing some time to process what his life was and where it was all heading. After a few minutes of this, though, Sam broke.

“You need a name,” he said, before shoveling another spoonful of oatmeal in his mouth. “Also some brown sugar. Come on, man, watching you eat that plain is doing things to my soul.”

The Asset sat and blinked at him, before eating another spoonful of completely plain oatmeal. He hadn’t even touched the bacon.

Sam picked up some brown sugar, and, telegraphing his movements, sprinkled just a little onto the Asset’s oatmeal. The Asset watched his hand carefully and with great suspicion before, stopping to glare up at Sam, he took a bite of oatmeal with the sugar on it.

The muffled squeak that came out of the Asset’s mouth made Sam’s day. No, his year.

“Seriously, man,” Sam carried on, “you can’t just go by Asset. First of all, it’s too close to Asshat, which we both know you’re not, and second of all you’re a person, and people have names.”

The Asset looked uncomfortably close to debating Sam on this point, so Sam started gesturing at him with bacon, which had the desired effect of making the Asset back off like Sam might make him try to eat it next. 

“What do you think? Jacob? Kenny? Ron? Dick?”

The Asset looked like he was having an emotion, which, hey, was kind of progress. Unfortunately the emotion appeared to be annoyance.

“I think you look like a Jack, personally.”

The Asset was visibly offended by this, though he seemed confused about the source of his frustration. Finally, he spoke up. “I don’t remember my name,” he said.

Sam smiled softly, his tone gentling. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured that. But you need a name. So what do you want to be called? Something that’s just you?”

The Asset shrugged. “My handlers have never asked me that before. Can I…” He trailed off. Then gaining courage again, he carried on, “Can I think about it?”

“Yeah, man,” Sam said. “You can think about it.”

*

It wasn’t that Sam didn’t trust the Asset alone in his house all day. If one thing was for sure, it was that the last thing Sam was expecting right now was for the Asset to rob him.

It was more an issue of him not anticipating that leaving the Asset alone in his house would work. For better or worse, the Asset was sticking to him like glue. And hey, if this meant that Sam was going to get a free shadow for a day’s worth of group therapy sessions, there were worse things that could happen. The only issue would be the individual counseling sessions. He just hoped he could convince the Asset to wait outside for those.

Also, Sam had an idea.

Making a casual detour on the way into the building to stop by June’s desk, Sam led the Asset up through the warren of staircases and hallways to the broomcloset he called his office. It had his name on the door and a desk and little else, but he figured it was the perfect place to give the Asset his gift.

He waited until the Asset had resumed his general stance of parade rest before presenting him with the book he’d taken from June – a catalogue of baby names. “June writes romance novels,” he explained. “And she likes using this to name the characters. Figured it would help you.”

The Asset took the book gingerly and slowly opened a page. “Aaron,” he read out. “I don’t feel like an Aaron.”

“You’ve got a whole book,” Sam said. “Keep going until you find one that feels right. Or just one you like. They have meanings in there and everything. You can even switch it up if you want.”

The Asset nodded and looked down at the book. For a long moment, the room was still save for the shuffling of papers as Sam prepared for the day. Then – 

“Thank you,” the Asset said.

Sam smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love This, You Protect with all my heart and the Asset/Asshat moment is one of my favorite revelations from that story. So, shoutout.
> 
> Also Sam is a gem.


	4. The Asset vs. The VA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Asset and Sam spend the day at the VA and personalities are discovered again.

Sam got through about half an hour’s worth of paperwork while the Asset read through the book of names. He counted that as a success. No eyes boring into his skull, no insistence on checking the room for weapons or bugs, just the quiet companionable silence of two dudes going about their business. Every once in a while, as he finished on sheet of reports and flipped to the next, Sam would look up and see the Asset mouthing a name to himself. He hadn’t liked Aaron or Adam - though Sam and his minor in English literature thought that naming the Asset Adam after the monster in Frankenstein might have been darkly appropriate - and had since progressed on to the B section. He was staring hard at the page here, and it looked like maybe B was going to be a hit.

Not that the Asset really looked like a Bobby, but maybe a Benjamin? Hard to say.

Still, after half an hour, Sam had to get up. He didn’t want to disturb their fragile peace, but he had other things on his plate today besides paperwork and the quiet contemplation of his new shadow. For starters, he had a counseling session, one that he didn’t think a mysterious threatening presence would improve.

Sam cleared his throat. The Asset looked up and carefully marked his place in the book with a metal finger.

“Find anything good?”

The Asset shrugged.

Sam smiled and shrugged back. “Well, man, you got the rest of the day to keep looking. Hell, you got the rest of your life if you want.” The Asset’s face screwed up like a baby eating pureed carrots. Sam laughed. “Either way, think you can take a walk for a while? I got a client coming in and these sessions are confidential.”

The Asset didn’t move.

“Okay, let’s put this another way: I need you to check the perimeter of the building and check back at 1000. You can take the book with you if you want. I’ll be meeting with another...asset.”

Still eyeing Sam as if he knew Sam was on some bullshit but wasn’t entirely sure how to call him out, the Asset carefully put the book facedown on his chair and left the room. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He genuinely hadn’t been sure that would work, but as was becoming habit, giving the Asset a clear military style command seemed to be the best way to get his compliance.

And didn’t that just make Sam feel skeevy all over. He didn’t actually want the Asset to comply. Well he did, but because the Asset understood about privacy and rights and dignity and human emotion. It felt wrong to manipulate him into getting the right results. But Sam had clients and they had needs too. So for the next two forty-five minute sessions, Sam cleared his mind and focused on the one thing he could control: being a bombass counselor.

At 1000, he heard a gasp at the door, just as his second client, Javier, was leaving. Javier was a good kid, just had a few issues with night terrors and insomnia so far. Sam looked up to see Javier practically climbing the door frame to get away from the Asset, whose body filled the entire doorway and was disconcertingly silent.

Sam gave the Asset an unimpressed look. Reluctantly, the Asset backed up and let Javier through.

The Asset practically sauntered back into Sam’s office. If Sam didn’t know better, he would think that every ten minutes the man had more of a personality, and that personality was 100% grade A dick. Still, it was better than nothing.

He hovered in the middle of the room for a moment, as if caught between resuming his perusal of the baby name book and giving a full report to Sam. Then, in a moment of defiance, he made deliberate eye contact with Sam as he flopped onto the chair and picked his book back up. He pulled it in front of his face. Sam raised an eyebrow. So it was like that was it? Okay.

Sam went back to doing paperwork and enjoyed the quiet for about five minutes before the restless twitching in the chair across from him made him sit up.

The Asset was practically vibrating in his seat. He alternated between looking at the book, looking at Sam, and looking out the window, all while twisting his coat in his flesh hand. When Sam looked at him he made to stand up, but Sam motioned him down.

“What’s up?”

His face a moue of frustration, the Asset glared at Sam. Sam grinned and repeated himself. “What’s up, homie?” he said, kicking back in his chair and casually dropping his feet on the desk. The Asset looked beside himself. Well two could play at this game.

Pointedly straightening his posture, the Asset put down his book - looked like he might be through to the C’s already - and pointedly made his report.

“Perimeter secure, sir. No hostiles. Troops are not combat ready. Could not find the armory.”

Sam nodded with his gravest face on. “Good work, Asset. The troops aren’t combat ready. Because they aren’t troops anymore.”

The Asset just cocked his head to the side and gave Sam that same old confused puppy look from before.

“They’re retired. Discharged. Gone home. This is a place for soldiers who don’t want to be soldiers anymore. Or hell, who do want to be soldiers but can’t for some reason. We don’t have an armory because we’re not under attack.”

Nothing. Just nothing. It was like talking to a big, shaggy wall.

“Did you find anything else?”

The Asset scrunched up his face again. “Encountered Handler June. Was given rations. Did not like them.”

Sam laughed. “She made you eat fruit cake, didn’t she?”

“They were bad rations.”

Putting his papers into the desk drawer, Sam motioned for the Asset to stand up. “Good work, good report, all that. You’re doing just fine, Asset. Now it’s time for group.”

But as Sam went to brush past the Asset and out of his admittedly tiny office, a hand shot out and grabbed his arm. Gently, so it wouldn’t bruise, but still with the strength and pressure of a vice. “Handler.”

“Yes, Asset? Damn, we got to get you a name.”

“Why?”

Sam waited as the Asset struggled through his limited vocabulary, and, to be fair, limited concept of self.

“Why didn’t you punish me for not reporting immediately?”

He turned to face the Asset and gently removed his wrist. “Because I’m not your master. You want to be a smartass and mouth off, you want to skip patrol, you want to sit around and read, you can do that.”

Well, he’d succeeded in confusing a guy with probable brain damage. Was that really a win?

“Come on,” Sam said more gently now. “We’re gonna go to group now. You don’t have to participate, but I bet if you listen, you might just learn a thing or two.”

*

The Asset came. The Asset listened. The Asset did not participate, but Sam hadn’t really been expecting that. Instead he sat in the back with the baby book and looked up every now and again, as if he were grounding himself with Sam’s presence. It was a good group session - those who shared had some real progress to talk about and everyone else was happy to celebrate a win in someone else’s life. And Sam would swear that a few times he saw the Asset perk up and listen just a little bit more to someone’s story, as if it were ringing true for him, as if he were resonating on that frequency just a little bit.

Alarmingly, they were usually the stories about torture that did it. Nightmares. Attacks. Sam didn’t have to work hard to piece together a few parts of this particular puzzle.

By the end of their first session, the Asset had moved silently from sitting in the absolute back of the room to the near back. By the end of the second, he was somewhere in the middle. And by the end of Sam’s third group session, his last of the day, the Asset was almost near the front, visible, and making eye contact with more than just Sam.

He was so totally counting this as a win.

As the room packed up to go, Sam checked his watch. It was already after five, and by the time they got through traffic and back to his suburb it would be almost seven. Better to get dinner downtown a little early than have to go back and cook. He turned to the Asset to suggest tacos, only to be arrested by the look on his face.

The Asset looked positively electrified. He was deep in the baby book, standing in a corner of the room, and it was like his hair was a millimeter from standing on end. He looked up then, alert to Sam’s watchful gaze, and for the first time in their brief acquaintance, Sam saw him smile.

It was a lot.

“Jabez,” said the Asset. “I want my name to be Jabez.”

“Okay, Jabez,” said Sam, smiling back. “How do you feel about tacos?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jabez, for the record, means Pain, but it the Story of Jabez is beautiful and absolutely one that Jewish!Bucky Barnes would know and recognize. At least I think he would.


End file.
